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Speaker 1: Well, coming up next, I have Ezra Kleine here in

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Speaker 1: studio talking about his new book that he co authored

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Speaker 1: with Derek Thompson called Abundance. In this book, Ezra does

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Speaker 1: not hold back on taking a very critical look at

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Speaker 1: democratic governance all across the United States of America, in

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Speaker 1: particular in my home state of California. This is Gavin

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Speaker 1: Newsom and this is Ezra Klein. Ezra is great to

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Speaker 1: have you here in studio.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me here for this weird inversion.

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Speaker 1: Weird inversion, and you've been I mean you've been all

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Speaker 1: over the place. You got a new book, Abundance, and

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Speaker 1: we'll jump right into that, but I want to just

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Speaker 1: frame a little bit of the relationship that we have

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Speaker 1: that goes back and you may not even remember this.

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Speaker 1: I was a new mayor in San Francisco and was

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Speaker 1: asked by Bill Mahert to go on a show. I

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Speaker 1: remember that you were one of the panelist, and I'll

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Speaker 1: remember forget just sparring with Bill obviously, and then you

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Speaker 1: And after the show was done and we were all finishing,

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Speaker 1: you had left, maher goes up to me and he goes,

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Speaker 1: who the hell was that? And I'm like, I know

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Speaker 1: who the hell was that, and it was you. We

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Speaker 1: were like whoa, uh, just for both of us didn't

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Speaker 1: have a you know, I was I was relatively new,

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Speaker 1: Bill's been seasoned.

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Speaker 2: You a lieutenant governor then, I don't think you lieutenant.

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Speaker 1: Got wasn't it? You know? It was I still was liet.

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure lieutenant governor. So but I was like, anyway,

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Speaker 1: I'd been on the show a bunch of times, but

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Speaker 1: you were. You had a next level capacity to analyze

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Speaker 1: things and to deliver a point of view. And so

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Speaker 1: it's not surprising to me that so much of that,

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Speaker 1: including that conversation we probably had on that studio and said,

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Speaker 1: it's reflected in what you've been focused on.

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Speaker 2: I think about your book from that era, Republic two

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Speaker 2: point zero.

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Speaker 1: It was called right, yeah, Citizenville, Citizenville you had to

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Speaker 1: take the town square digital and reinvent government. How about that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something we should thread into this conversation. I

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Speaker 2: think people have forgotten that era of Gavinism.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think in so many reflects in aspects

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Speaker 1: I was reading this book and you're reflected in this.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this has been my struggle as a former mayor.

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Speaker 1: You chronicle San Francisco, California disproportionately. But this book is

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Speaker 1: fundamentally about the future, and you framing the future in

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Speaker 1: abundance terms. But it's also a real shot against liberalism

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Speaker 1: in many respects, against the world we created now competing

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Speaker 1: against us in terms of process and courts and laws

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Speaker 1: and rule making and all of that that's created so

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Speaker 1: much of this cost of living dynamics. So tell us

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Speaker 1: what was the inspiration of the book. Tell us a

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Speaker 1: little bit about what abundance is.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the reason the book is so rooted in

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Speaker 2: California that I am. I mean, so this book is

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Speaker 2: co authored with Derk Thompson from the Atlantic, and so

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Speaker 2: we both have our own things you bring to it.

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Speaker 2: But I grew up in Irvine, as you know. I

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Speaker 2: went to the C system that went to d C

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Speaker 2: for twelve or thirteen fourteen years, and I spent a

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Speaker 2: bunch of time in DC covering a political system where

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Speaker 2: the problem was Republicans were bad. Oftentimes the things that

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Speaker 2: I wanted to see happen were not happening there because

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Speaker 2: they were being blocked by the Republican Party. And then

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Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, I moved back here. I moved back

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Speaker 2: to Oakland and then to San Francisco, and I looked

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Speaker 2: around and it just wasn't doing well. People were unhappy,

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Speaker 2: people were leaving. I mean, I mean, you know this,

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Speaker 2: you're a retail politician, like you can sense people's anger

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Speaker 2: when they find out you have anything to do with politics,

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Speaker 2: they tell you real quick. And we could see the

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Speaker 2: housing crisis hadn't tastasized into something that was genuinely now

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Speaker 2: a crisis. Not just homes are expensive. California high speed

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Speaker 2: rail has always lit me on fire that, yeah, we'll

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Speaker 2: get to that. And when I began to and I

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Speaker 2: was thinking about clean energy where your I mean, the

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Speaker 2: goals that you have set for clean energy in the

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Speaker 2: state are remarkable, and in order to achieve them here

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Speaker 2: or nationally, because the Inflation Reduction Act was passing around

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Speaker 2: this time too, that I was thinking.

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Speaker 1: About a lot of this.

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Speaker 2: We have to build faster than we have ever built,

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Speaker 2: and the laws don't really permit that. And so the

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Speaker 2: thing that I began thinking a lot about was that

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Speaker 2: there is something liberalism is good at and knows how

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Speaker 2: to look for, which is where can we subsidize something

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Speaker 2: that people need. But there's something liberalism is bad at

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Speaker 2: because it doesn't know how to look for it, which

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Speaker 2: is how do we create more? How do we make

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Speaker 2: it possible to build more of things people need? And

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Speaker 2: not only are we not good at pursuing that, we

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Speaker 2: don't even realize how often we are getting in the

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Speaker 2: way of it, how often we are the problem. There

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Speaker 2: is I think something bracing as a liberal about asking

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Speaker 2: this question of why, in the places where people who

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Speaker 2: agree with me govern, you and I don't think have

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Speaker 2: that different politics aren't the outcomes what I want to see?

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Speaker 2: Why can't I go say to the Texans or the Floridians, No, no, no, no,

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Speaker 2: you just have to do our policies from California. And

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Speaker 2: that's the thing I'm grappling with here.

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Speaker 1: No, And I appreciate that, and we'll get to that

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Speaker 1: question because I think it's a fundamental question, and it's

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Speaker 1: interesting what you sort of define from that prism. That's

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Speaker 1: important because what people are actually looking for isn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: what you are identifying. Specifically, I would challenge, as the

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Speaker 1: problem is that said, what you identify as the problem?

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Speaker 1: I completely agree that. I was going back to my speech,

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Speaker 1: my first speech is governor at the State of California,

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Speaker 1: it might have well, it's these pages. Yeah, literally said

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Speaker 1: if you can build a sports stadium with these new

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Speaker 1: rules and fast tack of judicial process and what we

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Speaker 1: referred to, we'll get the SEQUA are California rules that

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Speaker 1: go back to quite literally Ronald Reagan in nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: as it relates to environmental review. It should work for homelessness,

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Speaker 1: it should work for housing. And I announced that day

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Speaker 1: an effort to sue up to forty seven cities. We

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Speaker 1: started with one, Huntingdon Beach, California. Doesn't make you popular

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Speaker 1: as governor to announce a lawsuit against Erl City because

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Speaker 1: they weren't meeting their zoning requirements under our housing element.

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Speaker 1: So much of that again reflected in this friction and

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Speaker 1: your own reflected frustration and lived experience in the state

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Speaker 1: of California. But my point is this, as a practitioner,

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Speaker 1: it's a very different reality. But what you identify, I

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Speaker 1: completely embrace these labyrinths of rules, federal rules, state rules.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely localism though, and I want to talk about that

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Speaker 1: localism is determinative and you pick on understandably San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: but you can look at almost any city, including a

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Speaker 1: Republican health city like Huntington Beach, and these same rules

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Speaker 1: and restrictions apply there in the same frustrations. So from

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Speaker 1: the prism of left versus right, you take the shot

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Speaker 1: against liberals. But can't we argue that there is sort

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Speaker 1: of quality of consideration and nimbism that persists in rural

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Speaker 1: and red parts the countries.

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Speaker 2: Well, let me flip this because to shadow box around

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Speaker 2: the fact that you know more about California governance than

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Speaker 2: I ever will in a thousand years ago in this

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Speaker 2: would be ridiculous. Why is it easier to build homes

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Speaker 2: in Texas and California.

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Speaker 1: They have Well you established that in the book. In

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Speaker 1: Houston you make the point I think it was seventy

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Speaker 1: thousand permits in twenty twenty three, just seventy five hundred

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Speaker 1: in a much smaller city, San Francisco, but understandable contract

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Speaker 1: a city with more demand, more demand, and it's simply

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Speaker 1: because they have no zoning. They have land use consideration,

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Speaker 1: but Austin has zoning. Yeah, but not Houston. In the

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Speaker 1: context of that.

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Speaker 2: The thing I'm getting it here, which I really would

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Speaker 2: like your the thing you just said right about localism.

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Speaker 2: It's so important, and like, this is so much the

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Speaker 2: conversation I'd love for us to have here because the

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Speaker 2: texture that you have been grappling with of why do

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Speaker 2: things that you want to have happen not happen is

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Speaker 2: I think a really interesting thing to add to it.

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Speaker 2: But when you're saying, well, you know, is this really

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Speaker 2: a problem for liberals. It's easier to build in Texas

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Speaker 2: and Florida. They're not just in California, but in California

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Speaker 2: or New York. Right, the cost of living crisis is

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Speaker 2: worse in blue states. And a little bit of that

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Speaker 2: is Blue states are place a lot of people live,

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Speaker 2: but you should be able to in places ent governing

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Speaker 2: for the working class and theory, and your point.

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Speaker 1: Is a point and just to level set, people are

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Speaker 1: listening completely agree this notion of the supply demand imbalance.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you're making an econ one to one argument. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And that supply to imbalance is next level in the

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Speaker 1: state of California, Whi're simply not building enough housing and

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Speaker 1: that goes to I mean, and you correctly identify a nimbiism. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and people you know, incumbent protection rackets, so to speak,

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Speaker 1: not just from a corporate perspective, but someone who's very

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Speaker 1: satisfied with their backyard and their views and their home

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Speaker 1: and their community. They don't want density, they don't want

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Speaker 1: other people moving in, they don't want any infrastructure built

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Speaker 1: around it. As it relates to transportation, they're very satisfied

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Speaker 1: with what they have, and I think and they abuse

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Speaker 1: in some respects a lot of these rules that have

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Speaker 1: been around decades and decades uh to advance that aim.

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Speaker 2: So you identified all this, I think pretty well as

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Speaker 2: a problem for the state and for you. So when

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Speaker 2: you gave a State of the State a couple years back,

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Speaker 2: I'm genuinely forgetting the number. What was the housing goal

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Speaker 2: you set?

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Speaker 1: We said, well, we had we had an audacious goal

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Speaker 1: that was a study of studies that identified what the

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Speaker 1: state would need in order to address the supply demand

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Speaker 1: and ballants. But we made the point we were going

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Speaker 1: through a legally binding process what we referred to as

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Speaker 1: arena goals, and we've established that here is the legally

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Speaker 1: binding goal two point five million units by twenty thirty,

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Speaker 1: and that is the established state policy, and that's the goal.

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Speaker 1: So you're not on track for that, not even close

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Speaker 1: why for well number of reasons, macroeconomic. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think you have to be fair as it relates to

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Speaker 1: the realities of what just occurred, as it relates to

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Speaker 1: the constraints around the marketing of interest rates or interest

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Speaker 1: rates are high. Obviously, we came out of a very

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Speaker 1: difficult period during during COVID, but fundamentally because of the

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Speaker 1: inability to get local government to get out of the

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Speaker 1: way and allow for more construction. And that's why we

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Speaker 1: created a Housing Accountability Unit. That's why we've taken eight

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Speaker 1: hundred actions, That's why I've unlocked seventy five hundred units, uh,

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Speaker 1: and that's why we have advanced forty two sequel reforms

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Speaker 1: in some of the most significant housing reforms in California history.

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Speaker 1: As it relates to eighty US, which you identify eighty US.

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Speaker 1: Now you can buildinally do in single fami family home

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Speaker 1: zoning and duplexus. But at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: state visions realized back to.

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Speaker 2: Localists, why did the ADU effort work and the single

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Speaker 2: family housing or multi family housing didn't. I mean, those

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Speaker 2: were big bills and we Yimbi's greeted them with delight.

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Speaker 2: But I would say everybody would say that what was

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Speaker 2: it us be nine yes if the cities have made

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Speaker 2: it so those don't. Actually it doesn't build as much

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Speaker 2: housing it and.

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Speaker 1: That's why we created this housing accountability to drive more

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Speaker 1: responsibility at the local level and providing technical assistance. It's

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Speaker 1: not just a stick, it's also a carrot. But no,

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Speaker 1: look there's the that's the construct, right, I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: a classic example. People like their neighborhoods. That's the foundation

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Speaker 1: of Nimbiaism. And I had look this yimbiism frame, which

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Speaker 1: is yes in my backyard. For those wondering the hell

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Speaker 1: we're even talking about, I embrace it. I celebrate. I

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Speaker 1: don't think there's been a more yemb governor in California's history.

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Speaker 1: And it's why we've signed so many of these bills

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Speaker 1: and supported many of these bills. But you're right that

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Speaker 1: application a lot of these are new reforms just in

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Speaker 1: the last few years in this high interest rate environment.

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Speaker 1: So we'll see how quickly things unlock as interest rates

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Speaker 1: dropped down. But fundamentally, it's the Nimbiaism that drags it.

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Speaker 2: Let me ask you something about the housing reforms. As

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Speaker 2: I flipped the whole table this podcast. It's problem with

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Speaker 2: having a podcast host on. So during the election, when

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Speaker 2: Kamala Harris and then Barack Obama at the DNC, actually,

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Speaker 2: by the way, on Barck Obama than Kamala Harris. We're

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Speaker 2: up there talking about the need to build three million

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Speaker 2: new homes, right and really sad in like Yimbi's from

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Speaker 2: the stage. I was thinking, man, that is a huge

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Speaker 2: intellectual victory for movement that didn't exist like twenty five

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Speaker 2: minutes ago. I started thinking and and started running back

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Speaker 2: the date, and I'm like, Okay, how's it working out?

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Speaker 2: And you look in San Francisco and housing starts aren't up.

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Speaker 2: And you look in LA and they're not up. You

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Speaker 2: look in California. Not talking here about ADUs, but housing

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Speaker 2: starts in January twenty twenty five were lower than in

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Speaker 2: twenty fifteen. I began thinking to myself, oh shit, we

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Speaker 2: actually have won an intellectual argument without winning the policy.

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Speaker 2: So I began doing some reporting because I knew how many.

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Speaker 2: I'm not literally how many, but I knew there's been

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Speaker 2: a pretty torrid pace with you and you know, Scott

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Speaker 2: Wiener and Buffy Wicks and a bunch of other housing

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Speaker 2: local and the Last Day bills, and so I began

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Speaker 2: calling developers in San Francisco and said, what's going on here,

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Speaker 2: why don't I see a movement? And how much you're building?

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Speaker 2: And what they all told me was I didn't end

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Speaker 2: up writing this piece. I just didn't have time, but

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Speaker 2: I meant to for some time. Was all these fast

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Speaker 2: track bills required me to take on a bunch of

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Speaker 2: new standards and requirements, prevailing wages and environmental standards and

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Speaker 2: this and that. That made it more expensive for me

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Speaker 2: to take the fast track than just do what I'm doing.

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Speaker 2: It wouldn't pencil out for me to do it right.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that's one hundred percent true. I

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Speaker 2: could see you. But if that's not it, why do

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Speaker 2: you think all those bills didn't lead to Well.

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Speaker 1: A lot of them have. How we can talk about it,

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Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to get into really parochial politics,

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Speaker 1: but we can talk about a five hundred unit project

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Speaker 1: on Stevenson Street in San Francisco was never going to

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Speaker 1: get done until the state intervened and compelled the hand

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Speaker 1: of the city to actually move forward again. I mean,

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Speaker 1: and you've got an ideological war that's going on in

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Speaker 1: progressive cities. They don't believe in the supply demand framework.

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Speaker 1: They don't believe in this notion of abundance. Fundamentally, they

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Speaker 1: have a d growth mindset, which you talk a lot

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Speaker 1: about or at least right around in the book, And

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Speaker 1: so you're struggling with that ideological spectrum. But San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just infamously just loves its neighborhoods. Doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to see it up, so they don't want to

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Speaker 1: see the density. So they're constantly pushing back against this,

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Speaker 1: and we are as a state finally intervening in the ways

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Speaker 1: the state is never intervened in the past. So I

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Speaker 1: think it's a little too early to sort of assert

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Speaker 1: that the sort of fatalist or have a fatalist a

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Speaker 1: notion of what hasn't yet occurred, when in fact, we're

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Speaker 1: starting now to flex our muscles and the application of

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Speaker 1: these laws are now starting to fully go into effect,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately we want to see them materialize and manifest.

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Speaker 1: But that's I think that's that's the friction. But look,

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Speaker 1: let me just stipulate again. We're not arguing here, You're

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Speaker 1: one hundred percent right.

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Speaker 2: I was asking I'm curious.

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Speaker 1: No, but but also you're not. I'm you know, you

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Speaker 1: talk about as a bagel of earth was everything, Yeah, everything,

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Speaker 1: attack everything together. Even we're a little critical of the

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Speaker 1: Biden administration and the Chips and Science Acts and the

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Speaker 1: infrastructure stuff because they did the same thing. Look, you

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Speaker 1: go to the.

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Speaker 2: Rural broadband effort. Right twenty twenty one, they passed a

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Speaker 2: bi Parson infrastructure bail. We'll say it's the biggest infrastructure

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Speaker 2: bill in decades, which is not wrong one point two.

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Speaker 1: Turing, but five hundred and five to fifty of.

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Speaker 2: New Yeah, And one of the big headline pieces of

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Speaker 2: it is forty two billion dollars for World Broadband YEP

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty one that passes by the end of twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty four. Functioningly nobody's hooked up to Royal Broadband. And

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Speaker 2: me and Derek look into it, and there is a

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Speaker 2: fourteen stage process. I mean, I'm sure California was going

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Speaker 2: through a fourteen stage process of their creating a map,

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Speaker 2: and then the map can be challenged, and there's these

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Speaker 2: letters of intent and so on and so forth, and

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Speaker 2: by the end of their administration of the fifty six

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Speaker 2: states and jurisdictions that were trying to apply for the money,

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Speaker 2: three had made it through, which, putting aside the fact

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Speaker 2: that them, me and all these people didn't get broadband,

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Speaker 2: it also meant that they couldn't run on that right.

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Speaker 2: So much of the political theory of the Biden administration

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Speaker 2: was that if you can show liberal democracy can deliver,

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Speaker 2: you will pull people out of wanting these strongmen who

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Speaker 2: say they're going to burn the whole thing down and

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Speaker 2: give you something out of the ashes. And if you can't, really,

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Speaker 2: if the things don't move fast enough, if they don't

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Speaker 2: get to the people fast enough, it's much harder for

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Speaker 2: liberal democracy to make the case said it delivers. I

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Speaker 2: want it to deliver. I like these policies, but the

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Speaker 2: speed thing is a real problem. And I'll say one

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Speaker 2: more thing, because I was talking. I did an event

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Speaker 2: the other night with John Favreau and we were talking

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Speaker 2: about we were talking about high speed rail, but I

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Speaker 2: was saying that the stimulus bill under Obama that had

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Speaker 2: three big headline projects for reinvestment. It had high speed rail,

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Speaker 2: it had smart grid, and it had a nationwide system

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Speaker 2: of interoperable health records.

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Speaker 1: I remember those days.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh for three. Yeah, at some point we got

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Speaker 2: to be upset about this.

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Speaker 1: You know. So you have five core chapters in this book.

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Speaker 1: You talk about growth, you talk about governance, you talk

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Speaker 1: about deploying, inventing. You know, a lot of language very

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Speaker 1: familiar here in the state of California. Again, abundance is

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Speaker 1: fundamentally foundationally who we are, at least believe we are

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Speaker 1: in the state of California. And so in that respect,

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Speaker 1: I agree this sort of this perception performance is one thing,

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Speaker 1: and I would argue a little bit more favorably to Biden.

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Speaker 1: I mean, seven hundred and seventy five thousand manufacturing jobs,

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Speaker 1: just the job growth generally, and I'm not just talking

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Speaker 1: about job recovery from the pandemic, but the six plus

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Speaker 1: million jobs that you have to stack on that after

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Speaker 1: we were back to full recovery. The fact that Chips

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Speaker 1: and Science Act is producing real results as it relates

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Speaker 1: to private sector investment, and the fact that we finally

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Speaker 1: have an industrial policy that is worker center centric. And

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Speaker 1: I think that's that worker centricity that you can argue against,

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Speaker 1: because that was in you call it out and here

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Speaker 1: when you talk to Gina about issues related to childcare

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Speaker 1: and other aspirational frameworks as it relates to small businesses

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Speaker 1: and reaching diversity goals and the like. But there is

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Speaker 1: the fundamental disconnect, and you're absolutely right as it relates

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Speaker 1: to these large scale, adacious projects. And I will give

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Speaker 1: you your do on high speed rail. I have been

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Speaker 1: as critical or more than you have about this. In fact,

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Speaker 1: I appreciate you reference my pivot after I took this

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Speaker 1: job as governor, where we called out the status quo

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Speaker 1: and now we're trying to level set and get this

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Speaker 1: back on track. But at least there's a vision. At

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Speaker 1: least Obama had a vision. He wanted to be big

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Speaker 1: and big things, he wanted to do big things. And

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Speaker 1: at least progressive states still have a vision and they

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Speaker 1: have a design. I mean, and I think that's part

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Speaker 1: of an abundance frame and and and while it's difficult

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Speaker 1: to manifest that vision, I don't think it's an indictment

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Speaker 1: necessary it well, it's indictment in terms of our ability

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Speaker 1: to deliver on time and under budget. But the vision

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Speaker 1: I think is foundational and important. And I give credit

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Speaker 1: to the aboveman administration in that respect. For all three,

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Speaker 1: even if they were over.

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Speaker 2: Thirsk, I'm all for vision. I upset the point of

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Speaker 2: this book is that I want the things to happen.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we could talk about high speed rally, we

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Speaker 2: must talk about high speed draft. But before we before

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Speaker 2: we get there for a second, I mean, I do

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Speaker 2: the question around this book because it is very critical

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Speaker 2: of how liberals have governed. Well, then why you're just

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Speaker 2: a Republican?

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Speaker 1: Right?

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Speaker 2: If Texas is so good at housing? And the thing

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Speaker 2: that I keep telling people is you've really confused means

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Speaker 2: and ends here. Another thing that keeps coming up is like,

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Speaker 2: you want deregulation. Isn't that a Republican thing? Well not

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Speaker 2: if I'm deregulating the government itself so it can deliver

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Speaker 2: on the things you want. What's supposed to matter in

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Speaker 2: politics is not the means, it's the ends. And what

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Speaker 2: I sort of want. What I'm trying to push here

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Speaker 2: is for liberals to get a little bit more means

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Speaker 2: agnostic and more like ends obsessed. So the thing that

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Speaker 2: I the place where I probably differ a little bit

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Speaker 2: in what you just said a second ago, is that

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Speaker 2: I don't want to give anybody credit for a vision

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Speaker 2: that didn't happen. High speed rails you have a great

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Speaker 2: quote to me in this I use it in the

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Speaker 2: book High speed Rails undermined the public's faith and what

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Speaker 2: can get done? It undermines the next high speed rail?

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: And the thing that I want to see happen is

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Speaker 2: a kind of reckoning inside the governing I would call

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Speaker 2: it a culture. Not just laws. It's not just regulations,

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Speaker 2: although it is all those things. But it is a

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Speaker 2: culture of what happens when the Democrats who are setting

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Speaker 2: this stuff up getting the room together, and people start

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Speaker 2: raising their hands and saying, what about this and what

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Speaker 2: about that? And how about the other thing? And instead

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Speaker 2: of here and no, I think it's kind of a

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Speaker 2: little bit, and it's not the only thing going on,

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Speaker 2: but there is something wrong in a culture that so

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Speaker 2: often fails to deliver what it promises. I mean, not

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Speaker 2: just high speed rail, the big dig, the second Avenue subway,

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Speaker 2: right these you know, parts of them got done in

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Speaker 2: the second Avenue piece or the big dig eventually got done,

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Speaker 2: but too much, too expensive. You can't do enough if

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Speaker 2: you're doing that, and it's not inevitable. Europe builds trains

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Speaker 2: better than we do. They just do. And they have

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Speaker 2: governments I checked, and they have unions more than we do.

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Speaker 1: So it's not just the lawyers. And you point that

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Speaker 1: out of the wall.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's an issue I'd be very curious to hear.

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Speaker 2: So this is the thing I think people don't know

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Speaker 2: that I would love to hear it. To your thoughts

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Speaker 2: on that we do government different in this country than

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Speaker 2: they do in Europe, is a qualitative difference between it,

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Speaker 2: which is they run government through bureaucracies and we restrain

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Speaker 2: government through courts, which at the moment with Trump, seems

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Speaker 2: good in a bunch of ways, and there are ways

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Speaker 2: in which it's good, and there are also ways in

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Speaker 2: which it makes it hellacious.

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Speaker 1: You got it to deliver, Yeah, and I would say

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Speaker 1: that's the central theory of least. The argument that I

434
00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:25,640
Speaker 1: would make against the high speed rail is, I mean, look,

435
00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:28,200
Speaker 1: this thing started, and you make the point it started.

436
00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:30,080
Speaker 1: There was sort of talk about the vision. The original

437
00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:33,560
Speaker 1: vision was not Obama, it wasn't even necessarily Jerry Brown.

438
00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:36,080
Speaker 1: But you pointed nineteen eighty two when Brown at least

439
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:38,359
Speaker 1: says former Governor Jerry Brown, we should look at this

440
00:21:38,440 --> 00:21:41,760
Speaker 1: high speed rail thing. And then eventually Arnold Schwarzenegger, a

441
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:45,119
Speaker 1: Republican puts a bond on the ballot in two thousand

442
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:47,280
Speaker 1: and eight, and the voters approve it. And you're right.

443
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:49,280
Speaker 1: There was a lot of promotion and promise. Thirty three

444
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: point six billion dollars, two hours and twenty minutes downtown

445
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:57,720
Speaker 1: twenty by twenty twenty and the whole thing. And then reality.

446
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:02,520
Speaker 1: Now I get here later decade plus later and reconcile

447
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: the fact that we have to dig our way out

448
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:06,920
Speaker 1: of this. There's a new reality. There's a scarcity of resources,

449
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:11,560
Speaker 1: there's an abundance of delay, there's an abundance of cost overruns,

450
00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 1: and we have to level set that we need to

451
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 1: build something or we're left with literally nothing. We're left

452
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:22,080
Speaker 1: with pieces that go nowhere, that have no utility and

453
00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:25,360
Speaker 1: actually have a long term costs. But let's do it

454
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:27,840
Speaker 1: by telling people what it is and what it's not.

455
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,359
Speaker 1: And so this focus on the Central Valley, which is

456
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,639
Speaker 1: recognized was stipulated as a requirement under the Obama grant,

457
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,600
Speaker 1: the three billion dollars in one of the fastest growing

458
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:40,240
Speaker 1: parts of the state, an important part of the state,

459
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:43,159
Speaker 1: a state that has deep desire to connect to the

460
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:45,760
Speaker 1: rest of the state, and a state of mind that's

461
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 1: not just about a transportation project, but about upsony about

462
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: economic development, which a lot of that has occurred in

463
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:53,639
Speaker 1: and around these new stations that have been built, fifty

464
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,800
Speaker 1: large scale projects, the size of three Golden Gate bridges.

465
00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,480
Speaker 1: The entire environmental cpearance is now one hundred percent done.

466
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:01,840
Speaker 1: LA to San Francisco, there were two.

467
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 2: Thousand, twenty twelve to twenty twenty five.

468
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 1: I can't I can't make up for that. I can

469
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: only deal.

470
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 2: With the quota party, which is crazy.

471
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: It's crazy. But the point is we're at the point

472
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 1: where just announced we're doing railhead. We're finally laying the tracks.

473
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,120
Speaker 1: I mean we could, we can lament about it. We

474
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: absolutely learned from it, and we've stressed test a lot

475
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,199
Speaker 1: of it. You talk about the consulting class versus a

476
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 1: bureaucratic class, you're absolutely right, and we started to shift

477
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:29,439
Speaker 1: that just a few years ago. But the litigation on

478
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:33,680
Speaker 1: the two thousand, two hundred and seventy parcels that we

479
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:39,159
Speaker 1: had to purchase was next level, and that delay, I

480
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,119
Speaker 1: think is the core of this. There's plenty of other

481
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: bureaucratic malays and other issues we can identify, but back

482
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 1: to this notion, I think you're right this idea of

483
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 1: so I think liberal litigation. I don't know what phrase

484
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:53,800
Speaker 1: you used in the book, but we were mindful of

485
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 1: that and critical of that, and you mark that as

486
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: a big part of the sort of nineteen seventies construct

487
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:01,960
Speaker 1: in a America and tell us a little bit more about.

488
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, we can put a pin in high speed rail.

489
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 2: There are two major liberal movements that happen in the

490
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 2: twentieth century. The one we think about a lot is

491
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 2: New Deal liberalism. That's the one where we build aggressively.

492
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 2: It's a growth orient to liberalism. It's a liberalism of

493
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,880
Speaker 2: material goods. And it's the liberalism that defines the left

494
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 2: right divide in our national narrative. Right liberals believe in big,

495
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 2: strong government, conservatives believe in small, limited government. In the sixties, seventies, eighties,

496
00:24:37,200 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 2: you have real problems that have emerged from this New

497
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:45,520
Speaker 2: Deal order. We have built heedlessly, recklessly, intensely. We are

498
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 2: cutting highways all across the country, many of them, they're

499
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 2: not all of them through marginalized communities, but man, the

500
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 2: rich communities don't like it when a highway goes through

501
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 2: either right, and they have a lot of the power

502
00:24:55,119 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 2: that leads to this. There is a genuine spoiling of

503
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:03,879
Speaker 2: the environment. My colleague Derek likes to talk about the

504
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 2: moment in Los Angeles. I think it's in the forties

505
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 2: or fifties where people wake up and think there's been

506
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,399
Speaker 2: a chemical attack from Japanese, but it turned out that

507
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 2: the city had launched its own chemical attack on itself.

508
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 1: But you'll forget. In California, a lazy pundit could suggest

509
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 1: the modern environmental movement started in nineteen sixty seven in

510
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:23,679
Speaker 1: reaction to that in the business community saying enough and

511
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: Governor RONA. Reagan established the California Air Resources Board, of

512
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: which that rights and responsibility were afforded under the nineteen

513
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,199
Speaker 1: seventy Clean Air Act, which you also highlight in the

514
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 1: book Richard Nixon affording California waiver so that we can

515
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:42,640
Speaker 1: address the unique air quality concerns that you identify them book.

516
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 2: And then of course everybody forgets it's Reagan who signs

517
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 2: the California Environmental Quality Activity.

518
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, this SEQUE issue that you and others and myself.

519
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 2: It's worth I think taking time, it's worth taking I

520
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 2: think a minute on SEQUA. So Reagan signs a bill

521
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:03,679
Speaker 2: into law. From Jake Ambnder's research, it doesn't even merit

522
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 2: a full article in the La Times. It's interesting nobody

523
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 2: quite knows what they've done because initially SEQUA it just says, look,

524
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 2: when the government does stuff, it's got to produce o

525
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,439
Speaker 2: report on you know what the likely consequences are. No

526
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 2: big deal. And then there is a proposed development in Mammoth, which,

527
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 2: you know, the great ski and snowboard town, which I've

528
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:25,640
Speaker 2: been too many many.

529
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: Times, you Southern Californians.

530
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, Math, But there's a mixed use development that's proposed there,

531
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 2: you know, sort of condos and some shopping at the

532
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 2: bottom of them, and a bunch of rich Mammothians, I

533
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 2: don't know what they call themselves. Foul lawsuit, and they

534
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 2: have a novel argument, which is that this development can't

535
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 2: go forward because it violates SEQUA. And this gets rejected

536
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:49,439
Speaker 2: the courts because this is not roughly would this be

537
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 2: I'd want to double check this, but early seven years

538
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 2: these things, but I could be wrong with that. So

539
00:26:55,600 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 2: so what happens here is that the courts reject this

540
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 2: a bunch of times because Seque is about public development,

541
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 2: and then the Supreme Court rules no no no. Public

542
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 2: development is anything that requires a permit by the state

543
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 2: of California. There's a Sierra Club lobbyist who we quote

544
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 2: in the book. It says after that sequel applies to

545
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 2: anything where you are rubbing two sticks together in the state.

546
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 2: And so, now, having been as Ambunder puts it in

547
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 2: his dissertation on this stuff, informed by the courts of

548
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 2: what the law they passed actually does, the legislature puts

549
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 2: a pause on it because now everything's in a huge

550
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 2: legal limbo. But the key thing is at SEQUA. I mean,

551
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:37,239
Speaker 2: and I'm sure you know all this much better than

552
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 2: I do. But Sequa's power is amplified a lot by

553
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 2: courts that interpreted it in a way that was very

554
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 2: different than anybody initially interpreted it. And this is part

555
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,200
Speaker 2: of a period in liberalism where you have this rise

556
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 2: of an environmental movement that has legal dimensions and political dimensions,

557
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: and statutory dimensions and cultural dimensions. It's Rachel Carson, It's

558
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 2: Ralph And the key thing about this period of liberalism,

559
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 2: the New Left period of liberalism, is it is fundamentally

560
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 2: skeptical of government action. The New Deal is this alliance

561
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 2: between the government, the unions and the corporations to build,

562
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 2: to put people to work, to industrialize America and make

563
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 2: it into this kind of advanced, globe spanning superpower. And

564
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 2: the new Left comes in and says, we are destroying

565
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 2: this place, We are turning this country conformists. The term

566
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,239
Speaker 2: tiki Taki comes from a song about Daily City and

567
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 2: how gross all those homes are. Right, Like, there's a

568
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 2: whole thing about the esthetic destruction of it. I have

569
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 2: great quotes from Lyndon Johnson's speeches about we used to

570
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 2: worry about the ugly American, Now we have to worry

571
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 2: about the ugly America. Right, there's a whole change. It

572
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 2: begins to happen. And the way that this moment in

573
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 2: liberalism tries to square the circle because the new Left

574
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 2: is part of this era that's very individualistic, right. We

575
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 2: think about this for Reagan and individuals, but it's happening

576
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 2: on the left too and wants a highly participatory democracy.

577
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 2: And the way it tries to square it is create

578
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 2: a million different ways that individuals or individuals represented by

579
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 2: nonprofit groups typically can sue the government to stop it

580
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 2: or force it to think about things that it wasn't

581
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 2: thinking about before. Sorry, gott a mosquito there, And it

582
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 2: creates ways to sue the government and force it to

583
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 2: think about things that it wasn't thinking about or had

584
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 2: an earlier Get.

585
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: That damn thing.

586
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 2: If I got it, I'd be like a mom and

587
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 2: that I remember the time when he truly seems superpowered.

588
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 2: So the way they do that is they create this

589
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 2: raft of legislation. Of it is some of it is environmental,

590
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 2: but not all of it. And what it allows is

591
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 2: for individuals or individuals represented by groups and a huge

592
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 2: world of nonprofits emerges to take the best talent out

593
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 2: of the law schools and set them to suing government

594
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 2: to sort of enforce this. Ralph Nader, when he runs

595
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 2: for president in two thousand, is asked what qualifies you

596
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 2: to be president? Says he has sued more government agencies

597
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 2: than I have. And yeah, and so this is very

598
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 2: potent in blue states. It had a strong New Left,

599
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 2: and we don't think about it. Really, it's not part

600
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 2: of our national narrative of the left and the right.

601
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 2: Our national narrative is like the guys who like government

602
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 2: and the party that likes government and the party that doesn't.

603
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 2: It's not that way. The right loves a big police

604
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 2: state and the left has a very divided soul on government.

605
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 2: It likes some kinds of government, but it hobbles government.

606
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 2: And that sort of made sense for its time. But

607
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: now we're in a different time where the problems are

608
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 2: problems of not building enough and environmentally particularly, All of

609
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 2: a sudden, we've gone from a period where it really

610
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 2: was environmentally important to stop much of the things that

611
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 2: were happening, and now we're in one where the environmental

612
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 2: movement has to build, build, build, build the i ras

613
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: of building approach to climate change, and our laws are

614
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 2: not set up for that. And this is where I'd

615
00:30:56,800 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 2: like to get your perspective. The thing that's also is

616
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 2: like the Democratic coalition is not set up to revisit

617
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 2: those laws. You all been doing little carve outs of SIQUA. Yeah,

618
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 2: but you've not ripped it out and rebuilt it, and

619
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 2: nor have we done that at the national level. And

620
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 2: as much as Democrats know this, the environmental groups don't

621
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 2: want to do that. There's a lot of power and

622
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 2: incumbents around the legislative architecture we have now, and you

623
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 2: don't get a huge I mean, you've tell me if

624
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:25,239
Speaker 2: this is wrong, but I feel like you don't get

625
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 2: a huge parade for rebuilding legislative process, right zero.

626
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 1: I mean so it feels like the contrary. It's years

627
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: and years of friction, trial and error. It takes a

628
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 1: couple of years. You introduce, you socialize, it gets nowhere,

629
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: finally gets through new coalition, new personalities, You finally get

630
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: it done. Then two years later you're actual exercise it.

631
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: I'll give you two specific examples. I have a two

632
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy day judicial review process that we pushed.

633
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: We worked it for. Its first use case was the

634
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: first above ground storage facility in California, last half century sites.

635
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: It's in an offstream dam in California. At the second

636
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: quite literally a week ago, for three hundred megawatt large

637
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:13,520
Speaker 1: scale solar facility which we are testing. It hardly perfect,

638
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: but that was three years in the making just to

639
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: have this established rule where I can finally fast track

640
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: large scale projects to start addressing your point. And you're right,

641
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: there was no fundamental coalition for any of that. It

642
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: was a very lonely process until after years and years

643
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: of trial and error, we finally broke through.

644
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 2: Do you think you benefit from the other side of it,

645
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 2: from being able to get these projects built, Like if

646
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 2: you could get them built, do you think like it's

647
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 2: an intermediate period of pain and then better politics.

648
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 1: It will be better politics, but I won't be around

649
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: to enjoy the fruits of that. And I think that's

650
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: the great struggle. To your point, I mean you made

651
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: that point about Biden earlier. I mean that's just a

652
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: it's forty eight months. You're in the middle of trying

653
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: to address the pandemic. You've got all kinds of global issues,

654
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: you've got supply train constraints, you've got war in Ukraine,

655
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 1: You've got all of these issues, and yet he passes

656
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: I refer to as a master class.

657
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 2: You are more defensive of Biden's record than of your own.

658
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: No, I'm more proud of the work they did, breaking

659
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: through actually addressing the issues that Democrats claim they wanted

660
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: to address, including marginally. And I agree with you again,

661
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: there's zero daylight in this book which is markable, including

662
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: its own critique, my own self critique of my own

663
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: state and my own performance. So it's interesting. But he had,

664
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: as I said, industrial policy, there was worker centric and

665
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: there was reforms at the same time, to deal with mansion,

666
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 1: which you acknowledge in the book.

667
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 2: Marginal Well, the progressives killed those we just killed. But

668
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 2: you're talking about the permitting the permanent reforms.

669
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: But that sort of manifested and finally on the Chips

670
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: and Science Act to be a version of that with

671
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: Kelly and Cruz as it relates to. So there was

672
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: some component parts.

673
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 2: And they learned on this. I mean, Brandiese, who is

674
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 2: Biden's former a NEC director, has an awesome piece in

675
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 2: Foreign Affairs about why we need to build faster. Right,

676
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 2: there's learning here. But I would wish but.

677
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: If we but I'm going to let me stipulate, let

678
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: me make this quickly if we can figure that out.

679
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 1: If we can, I don't. This is this is the

680
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 1: most one of the most important books democrats can read.

681
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 1: Wake up. I sent this to the two leaders of

682
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: my California Assembly and Senate.

683
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 2: You love to hear it.

684
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 1: I just know. No, I'm serious, I said, guys, wake

685
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: this is it. I mean, we're being judged here at

686
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: a different level. We've done some good things together. We

687
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,320
Speaker 1: got to get serious. As the spot on on a

688
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. There's some you know, we had

689
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 1: population growth, the last two years. By the way, in

690
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: December they updated all the census numbers. It grew in

691
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: California the last two years. He had red states that

692
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: a population declined in the last few years, with the

693
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: exception of Vermont. There's some QUI I can equivalent some

694
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: of that respect, but fundamentally, these larger trend lines you

695
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 1: identify and this friction struggle to build more and build

696
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:52,399
Speaker 1: better and to address I'm with you on the high

697
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: speed rail. It furiates me as a taxpayer. You're one

698
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: hundred percent. It's an indictment of our ability to deliver.

699
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 1: That said, we are finally doing realized where by train sets.

700
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 1: We got partnership with the Bright Line and High Desert Corridor.

701
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: We did full electrification of Caltran seven hundred and fourteen

702
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: million dollars fifty one miles. We got all the environmental

703
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: work done, all the hard works now behind us. Now

704
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: we're laying track and we're finally getting that first one

705
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: hundred nineteen miles done. We'll get to one seventy one.

706
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: It's a six point five billion dollar gap. We have

707
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 1: strategy to address that.

708
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 2: I don't even want to go I want to hold

709
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 2: high title for a second. I want to do one

710
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 2: thing on Biden before we go.

711
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: But the issue with Biden is I don't know what

712
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:31,439
Speaker 1: the hell more he could have done in a short

713
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: period of time to deliver on a bold vision and

714
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 1: lay the tracks for benefits that will enjoy. Yes, not

715
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: all in forty eight months, but over the course the

716
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 1: next four eight years.

717
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 2: It'll be loving Like. I'm not saying it's all his fault.

718
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,760
Speaker 2: That's not my point here, right, He is inheriting a government,

719
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 2: although you see in a very dark way with Musk

720
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 2: and Doge that a lot that was taken as a

721
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 2: binding constraint actually isn't. So I want to hold that

722
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 2: because I think there are things as grotesque is what

723
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 2: that crew is doing to the government. There's also things

724
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 2: that need to be learned from what they're doing to

725
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 2: the government.

726
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: But it didn't.

727
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 2: I really think it's important to hold this in mind

728
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 2: for all of us, because it's something I really did

729
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,439
Speaker 2: not understand. It did not used to take this long

730
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 2: to deliver Medicare. Medicare delivered Medicare cards a year after

731
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 2: they passed that bail. It took the Affordable Care Act

732
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 2: four years to begin delivering actual insurance to any we

733
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:28,799
Speaker 2: can talk. It took on the Inflation Reduction Act, which

734
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 2: is doing the much smaller job of just beginning to

735
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 2: negotiate prices on some drugs three years to get that started.

736
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 2: I mean we built I mean, these are the classic examples.

737
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:39,919
Speaker 2: But we built the Empire State Building in a year.

738
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 2: The average environmental review takes four and a half years.

739
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: Just a few years ago to get bridge. I agree,

740
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: you know.

741
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 2: All this The thing that I want to say about this,

742
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 2: which is not Joe Biden's fault, but it is the

743
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 2: fault of now. I think a long period of Democrats

744
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 2: beginning to get accustomed to this slowness. This is not

745
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 2: going to work politically. I agree with you are not

746
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 2: going to hold the people you need to hold if

747
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 2: your answer in every term is he can't feel what

748
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 2: I did because a government takes too long. If it

749
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 2: had to take too long, fine, but it doesn't actually right.

750
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 2: These are man made and it's not.

751
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: Just government, it's also private sector. I mean, there is

752
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: there is another component of this. The markets actually play

753
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 1: a really significant outsize influence in timing on a lot

754
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,240
Speaker 1: of these things, on investments, et cetera.

755
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they would build fast. In a lot of cases,

756
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 2: if we let them build fast, I mean, they're not

757
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 2: why we didn't get world broadband done.

758
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: That was not that No, but that's just you know,

759
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:37,040
Speaker 1: I agree, that's fifty states solutions, thousands thousands.

760
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 2: Think I'm pushing on a little bit here with using

761
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 2: the example of Biden, not you, But I do think

762
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 2: this is I think that those of us who want

763
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 2: to defend liberal democracy from an actual challenge to it.

764
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 1: Right.

765
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 2: One of the things Trump is getting the most mileage

766
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 2: out of, and he says it himself all the time.

767
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 2: I think it's why he likes what Elon Musk is

768
00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 2: doing for all. The risk of it is the sense

769
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 2: of constant action. Yeah, all of a sudden government which

770
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 2: normally you don't feel moving. You feel it moving, maybe badly.

771
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 2: Maybe what you feel is the heat from it burning

772
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 2: to the ground, but you feel movement. Right and Populace

773
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 2: have that. They have a politics of energy almost all

774
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 2: of the time.

775
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:13,239
Speaker 1: Right.

776
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:15,959
Speaker 2: This is something you see across countries, and I think

777
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 2: that Democrats need to begin to think about speed as

778
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 2: a thing we are actually tracking and pursuing government. We

779
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 2: have other things we need to pursue. In track equity right,

780
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 2: just right. There are a lot of things we need

781
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 2: to think about and you need to make trade offs

782
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 2: between them. But speed is one we have just let slip.

783
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 2: And it's not just like bad, because it's kind of

784
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 2: sad that we let it slip. Jake Sullivan said about Biden,

785
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 2: he said, elections are measured in four years, and his

786
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 2: presidency will be measured in decades. It won't or his

787
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:49,239
Speaker 2: policy agenda be judged in decades, so much of it

788
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 2: is going to get undone, including a lot of the

789
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 2: Transatlantic alliance that he worked so hard to rebuild that

790
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 2: it won't. One reason that this book is politically important

791
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 2: to me not just the kind of background, as is

792
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 2: a policy reporter, and the stuff I like is like

793
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 2: the details of the policy. But one reason it's politically

794
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 2: important to me is that Democrats have I think, got

795
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 2: in a little bit of learned helplessness around not every

796
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 2: little bit of how gardment moved slowly. People think about

797
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,440
Speaker 2: procurement reforms. You've done a lot on that, but in general,

798
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:22,839
Speaker 2: the sense that we just can't do what we once did,

799
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 2: like the way the garment used to work. I was

800
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,400
Speaker 2: reading a great piece by Harold Myerson, who's at the

801
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 2: American Prospect, and he's a great California reporter too, and

802
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 2: he wrote this piece was back during the stimulus debate

803
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 2: under Obomba. He sent it to me the other day

804
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:40,759
Speaker 2: and he talks about the way the worst progress administration

805
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 2: started up under FDR and the unfathomable speed at which

806
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 2: they just cut through everything to put millions of people

807
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 2: the equivalent today of putting ten million people to work

808
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 2: in a matter of months. Right, And he was saying,

809
00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 2: you can't do it today, Harold was because you just

810
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 2: wouldn't have the laws. But I just think it's really

811
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,720
Speaker 2: important to say laws are man made. There are laws

812
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 2: of physics, there are technical things we don't yet know

813
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 2: how to do. But the difference between places at construct

814
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:17,719
Speaker 2: apartment buildings quickly and that don't is that's us.

815
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And look and you highlight some of

816
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: those successes. I mean you you talk about what happened

817
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: during the Trump administration in COVID. By the way, a

818
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: lot of innovation happened during COVID. Yeah, including on land use.

819
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: We did something called home key, room key. We changed

820
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 1: land use and sequel. We did it through a emergency frame.

821
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: You referenced the Eye ninety because risk tolerance went up,

822
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:39,719
Speaker 1: risk tolance went up, I ninety five and emergency frame.

823
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: It's exact posts of any we had the Eye ten,

824
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 1: which we got done in eight days. That was even

825
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: more through the ninety five. Yeah, you should have added

826
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: that and one nice thing you could have said about

827
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: our state. But so there was a state of mind though.

828
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: I mean, we're doing it right now in terms of

829
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 1: the emergency work we're doing on the rebuilding of the

830
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: fire declaration and people are celebrating it and the emergency.

831
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,879
Speaker 2: Structures work better. Yeah, then why is it not making

832
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 2: the normal structure closer to them?

833
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: No? I look, I this this is why. That's why

834
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:08,799
Speaker 1: I wanted to do this podcast, is why I love

835
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 1: don't like your book. That's why I think it's essential

836
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: reading for democrats. This notion of speed, appearing to take

837
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: action but not doing things to people, but with people

838
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: and finding that right balance it's not I think there's

839
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: the stress. And it goes to your opening point about

840
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 1: some of the questions you're getting sort of this notion

841
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: of a binary that it's one or the other. Why

842
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:30,840
Speaker 1: aren't you a Republican as opposed to risk taking without recklessness.

843
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: You know what's that right balance? You know? Is the

844
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 1: right balance of DOGE is the example of the one

845
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: hundred and forty billion dollars that Clinton and Gore saved

846
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 1: on a one point four trillion dollar government and they

847
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: reduced the size of the workforce by four hundred thousand.

848
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: But they did that again in partnership and did real

849
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,760
Speaker 1: reform versus the recklessness of DOGE. Is it the RFI

850
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,800
Speaker 1: two process. I thank you for recognizing our procurement reforms

851
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: you highlight. We brought in gen Polka to it from

852
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: Code for America to bring in a private sector version.

853
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:01,439
Speaker 1: We did the original DOGE. We call it ODI, which

854
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 1: the Office of Digital Innovation, which is now Office of

855
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 1: Data Innovation. We're trying to change the entire procurement framework.

856
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: We inherited these old Cobalt systems that you highlight from

857
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:13,760
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine and these IBM mainframes in the nineteen eighties.

858
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: All of that creates a stress on the system, and

859
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 1: so it's not easy overnight to fix it. But the

860
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: emergency mindset and I think the break the glass point

861
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:27,359
Speaker 1: you're making is for democrats right now, and it's the

862
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 1: soul searching we have, we got to deliver it.

863
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 2: Does your legislature want to fix it?

864
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: They all intellectually do. But then you have you have

865
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: every constituency in every group, and they're showing up twenty

866
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: four to seven. Then nimbiism as well established. You've established

867
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: it from the mindset. It's not just by the way Reagan.

868
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: In sequel, it's the NEPA, it's in Dangered Species Act,

869
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 1: it's the Clean Water Act, all the stuff Nixon did.

870
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 1: But it's not. But in any reform, people panic, oh,

871
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: you don't care about you You've just turned it conservative.

872
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: You can't even I mean, we've had a podcast here.

873
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 1: You talked to Republicans. You're like, geez, what the hell

874
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: is going on? Guys selling out sold his soul. So

875
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: you have reforms around process. In sequel, people panic said, what,

876
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: you just want to destroy the environment. So there's a

877
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 1: political price you pay for that reform. But you're right,

878
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 1: there's a political price for not reforming, which is where

879
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:23,319
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party is today. So speed decision making, the

880
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: sense of action and purpose. By the way, a lot

881
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: of what this president is celebrating is what the last

882
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 1: president did, and a lot of the investments, I mean

883
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: the AI investments that Sam and others were making and

884
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 1: that we're making.

885
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 2: I want to get the credit. That's one of the

886
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:43,760
Speaker 2: reason I think the speed thing is actually so important.

887
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,400
Speaker 2: You want to shorten. Look, the policy feedback loops are

888
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 2: broken because people don't know who did the policy. When

889
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 2: you said a second a couple of minutes ago that

890
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 2: these projects that can only exist because of your fast

891
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 2: tracking will not exist while you are in office, right,

892
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:03,760
Speaker 2: that a breakdown of the way the voters can maintain

893
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 2: accountability right when they don't know who did what. It's

894
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 2: actually a big problem. One thing that I think about

895
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 2: with what you were just saying on the politics of

896
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 2: it is that and I see it very clearly in California.

897
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's true in other places. You can you

898
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:20,840
Speaker 2: should tell me if this is facile. You can avoid

899
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:24,280
Speaker 2: short term pain in a way that ultimately creates almost

900
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:26,720
Speaker 2: unsolvable long term pain. And so you know you obviously

901
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 2: used to be mayor of San Francisco London Breed said

902
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 2: a lot of the right things on yimbiism and all

903
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 2: the rest of Itancisco, but couldn't get it done and

904
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 2: lost reelection. Not the only reason, but a big reason.

905
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:42,839
Speaker 2: People are furious about the homelessness problem there, and that's

906
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 2: in large part of a housing problem. It's not the

907
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 2: only reason, but.

908
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: A large problem. You make that point, and you're spot on.

909
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 2: In Oakland, they were called the mayor in Los Angeles.

910
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of reasons for what's going

911
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 2: on there, but Crusoe ran a much stronger campaign than

912
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 2: people have expected at the beginning, and.

913
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:01,279
Speaker 1: Former Republican we're out performed a.

914
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,279
Speaker 2: Lot of Yeah, and so you have this sort of

915
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 2: thing happening where there's almost I think, I don't want

916
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:07,320
Speaker 2: to say a ceiling. We'll see what you do in

917
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 2: a couple of years. I don't want to say a

918
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 2: ceiling on where California politicians can go. But it is

919
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:16,840
Speaker 2: very hard to be successful when people are angry of

920
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:19,759
Speaker 2: our problems that maybe you didn't cause, right, but you're

921
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 2: also not willing to take the pain out assault.

922
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: Well, I'm trying. I am taking the pain and I'm

923
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: taking the political I mean, I can give you proof

924
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 1: points of the work we've done in the political capital

925
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: We've used to get a lot of these reforms advanced,

926
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 1: and that's I think that's That's where I struggle a

927
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: little bit with the book. Just again, the book that

928
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 1: I celebrate and I'm handing out to folks, is it's

929
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,920
Speaker 1: not a lot of that is acknowledged the actual policy

930
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 1: reforms that we are advancing, that we are marching and

931
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: moving towards, and how we're actually starting to see some

932
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: progress in that respect. But with that in mind, I

933
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:56,799
Speaker 1: get the speed and the scale, but I also want

934
00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: to make a case. Look, this is a state, you know,

935
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: where we're aiming population again, We're running budget surpluses. We

936
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:08,280
Speaker 1: dominate in every innovative category you talk about the future

937
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 1: of abundance in the context of invention and deployment, that's California.

938
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 1: Eighteen percent of the world's R and D is in

939
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,480
Speaker 1: the state. No other state comes close. Only two countries

940
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: have more R and D, and that's that's Germany and China.

941
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,360
Speaker 1: This is a state with forty one percent more manufacturing

942
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: output than the state that tends to get a lot

943
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 1: of credit in Texas. Texas, by the way, takes seventy

944
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 1: one point one billion dollars of federal money from the taxpayers.

945
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 1: We give eighty three point one billion dollars. We have

946
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:43,959
Speaker 1: more scientists, engineers, more, Nobel laureates, more venture capital. Half

947
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:46,840
Speaker 1: of the unicorn companies in the country are in California.

948
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:48,800
Speaker 1: There's a lot going right. They just get a survey

949
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 1: of the top ten happiest cities. I would respect Houston

950
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: went on that list, but Santa was very Irvine was

951
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: on that list. Fremont interesting, number one, San Diego. So

952
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:05,759
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, we dominate in AI. The

953
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: world again, we're inventing the future happens here. By the

954
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: way you saw in homelessness, the numbers through the roof

955
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,840
Speaker 1: across the rest of the country stabilized here in California.

956
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: The housing crisis not unique to Blue states, any larger, longer,

957
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: lower taxes in this state than in many many states.

958
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: People talk about the high taxes in California. It's just BS.

959
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: Sixteen states. Sixteen states tax their poorest residents more than

960
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 1: we tax our top one percent. Forty percent of our

961
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:39,760
Speaker 1: residents pay lower taxes than in Florida and Texas. Eighty

962
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: percent of our residents pay slightly above average taxes. So

963
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: this notion of even being a high tax state is BS.

964
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 1: This notion that everyone's leaving is complete BS. We dominate

965
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 1: in so many of these categories because I think of

966
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 1: our values, but we're not build enough damn housing, and

967
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:00,439
Speaker 1: that's led to this homeless crisis. Not exclusively, you said,

968
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: but it's contributed. And yes, we had a vision decades ago.

969
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 1: The taxpayers advanced it on a high speed rail and

970
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 1: we watched China clean our clock. You highlight that in

971
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: miles and numerics that are depressing. Don't you want you

972
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: to repeat them? I can for everybody, but I'm not

973
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:17,799
Speaker 1: going to. But we're going to get the damn thing done.

974
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 1: They complained about the Erie Canal, they complained about the

975
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 1: Panama Canal, they complained about the trans Continental Railroad right

976
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 1: before it finally started, uh to start to start to

977
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 1: see real progress. And I feel like we're at that

978
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 1: tipping point with this damn high speed rail. But nonetheless,

979
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: you're right speed.

980
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 2: Rail for a second. So I, for instance, I will,

981
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 2: I will, I will say, first look, I love California. No,

982
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 2: I have redwoods tattooed on my shoulder, like no joke,

983
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 2: and like and leaving the state to go live in

984
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 2: New York City was like the right thing for a

985
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 2: bunch of reasons. But but you know, a difficult personal

986
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 2: choice for me because this is my soil. So every

987
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 2: you live through a tough time, though, Francis, you know

988
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 2: what I would still I mean it was that was

989
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 2: that was im That was a tough time in the pandemic.

990
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 1: And by the way that city is coming around, it's

991
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: turning around. Objectively, I love s F two objectively.

992
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 2: You know, as I say, what is a criticism is

993
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:15,560
Speaker 2: an act of love.

994
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: Yes, bless you. There's a lot of love, a lot

995
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 1: of love.

996
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:20,319
Speaker 2: In this book, man, a lot of love in this book.

997
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:24,240
Speaker 2: But and then this is I think always the great

998
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:30,760
Speaker 2: uh paradox of California. California is the frontier of the future.

999
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 2: It always has been. And technologically as you said, but

1000
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 2: also culture right. You go to northern California, we're inventing

1001
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 2: everybody's technology. You go to southern we're given the whole world.

1002
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 2: It's culture right, It's a wild place. And the to me,

1003
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 2: the reason the housing thing matters here, the reason I

1004
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 2: structure the housing chapter the way that that I do

1005
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:56,680
Speaker 2: with Derek, is that you need to make it possible

1006
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:02,319
Speaker 2: for people to be and and and prosper from that

1007
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 2: prosperity right, it is good for people.

1008
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: To be near the AI boom.

1009
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 2: I have friends. I mean they fought fires in the

1010
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:13,520
Speaker 2: city of San Francisco, couldn't afford to live there.

1011
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 1: Right.

1012
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 2: The point of California's riches is that they should be shared,

1013
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,319
Speaker 2: not shared necessarily just through taxation and reistribution, but through

1014
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 2: the ability to people to go live in these super

1015
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 2: high productivity places. Where has happened with like a young

1016
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 2: Steve Jobs and Wosniak, you sort of fall into this

1017
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 2: world where maybe if you have a genius for something,

1018
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:35,720
Speaker 2: you have the connections to make it matter.

1019
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 1: You know.

1020
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 2: I have this sort of line in the book that

1021
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 2: in making these cities so expensive, we did the real gating.

1022
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,439
Speaker 2: We really closed the frontier, because the true frontier isn't land.

1023
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 1: Its ideas you frame it with Horace Greeley, go west,

1024
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 1: young Man, go west, and then you create that new construct.

1025
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I want to pull that. It's actually everything

1026
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 2: you say about California. And you know this I'm not telling,

1027
00:50:57,040 --> 00:50:59,759
Speaker 2: but I'm sanding for the audience that that makes it

1028
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 2: so important that like the working class families can be

1029
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 2: here are not driven out but on my speed rail.

1030
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 2: Let me because by.

1031
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 1: The way, just beg the housing crisis in this state

1032
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: explains more things and more ways on more days, that

1033
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: affordability issue is the core of ninety percent of California's

1034
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 1: real and structural problems. This is foundational. Again, you could

1035
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 1: not be more right. It is at the core of

1036
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 1: the issues that define the challenges not just to this state,

1037
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,880
Speaker 1: increasingly all over the United States. We talk about the

1038
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:35,960
Speaker 1: future happening here first, where America is coming to traction.

1039
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 1: That's all those wonderful things. Then you and I were

1040
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: just discussing, but obviously all of these perilous issues that

1041
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:45,800
Speaker 1: you have been discussing, and the reason you wrote.

1042
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:47,400
Speaker 2: This book so high speed rail. So when I went

1043
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 2: on and did the reporting on that, and I went

1044
00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 2: up and down the track with the people building it

1045
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:53,759
Speaker 2: and the people from the rail authority, and they told

1046
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:55,399
Speaker 2: me a couple things that have stuck in my head

1047
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 2: that I don't try to resolve in the book, but

1048
00:51:56,800 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 2: I'd be careious for your thoughts. So one was that

1049
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 2: the said Bakersfield Leg, which is the leg that is

1050
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:05,359
Speaker 2: currently being tried. I think they said they had something

1051
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 2: like line of sight either had spent or head line

1052
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 2: of sight on something like it was in the range

1053
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 2: of eleven to fifteen billion dollars.

1054
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 1: We thirteen point four billion dollars of which ten point

1055
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 1: eight from the state and two point six from the feds.

1056
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:20,759
Speaker 2: All right, and that the estimate on finishing was said

1057
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 2: to Bakersfield was thirty six billion.

1058
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there's there's currently our estimates and this plus

1059
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 1: or minus and this moving target about six point five

1060
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: billion dollars that we based upon what we have the

1061
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: current commitments. We had additional three billion dollars from the

1062
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 1: federal government. Obviously, the term of administration is trying to

1063
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:42,279
Speaker 1: analyze that as they did in the last time. And

1064
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 1: then cap and trade proceeds that will continue to accrue

1065
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:48,920
Speaker 1: if we extend cap and trade. Can you bond against that?

1066
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: There's a lot of variations.

1067
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 2: So you're saying you think you have line of sight

1068
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:54,239
Speaker 2: on the money we have with a delta six point

1069
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:57,439
Speaker 2: five billion roughly, And what a bunch of the people

1070
00:52:57,440 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 2: working on set is like, look, in the end for

1071
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:00,799
Speaker 2: this to really work, needs to be LA to San

1072
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:02,920
Speaker 2: Francisco and now would cost one hundred and ten billion dollars.

1073
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we're looking at and I don't you know, Look,

1074
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:10,879
Speaker 1: we've extended high speed rail the idea is to get

1075
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: it in these density and population quarterors, which is the

1076
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:17,000
Speaker 1: point you make in the critique, and get Ta Fresno,

1077
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 1: for example, to Gilroy where Caltran is, and we can

1078
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:23,239
Speaker 1: we can then connect to San Jose and into San Francisco.

1079
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: We have the existing infrastructure in place. That's about an

1080
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 1: hour you get into Palmdale. Now you're connecting with the

1081
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 1: new Bright line that's going all the way to Vegas

1082
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:34,239
Speaker 1: and one of the fastest growing parts of the state

1083
00:53:34,239 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 1: in Palmdale, where middle class families can still afford a home.

1084
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 1: And so those are component parts and that's where I

1085
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 1: think that thirty six million billion dollar number came from.

1086
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:47,759
Speaker 1: Those three component parts. Roughly add up to that now

1087
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 1: that to Hatchpee Mountains, getting them over all of those

1088
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 1: larger issues. Those are issues that obviously are component parts of.

1089
00:53:55,120 --> 00:53:57,440
Speaker 2: This larger and that'll be you know, over the course

1090
00:53:57,480 --> 00:53:58,320
Speaker 2: of many minuters.

1091
00:53:58,400 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: Right. Oh.

1092
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,359
Speaker 2: But I think the I think the big question people

1093
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 2: have about it, and you hear people asking us all

1094
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 2: the time, is that And.

1095
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:05,719
Speaker 1: I'm just write I inherited this.

1096
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:11,919
Speaker 2: I'm not blaming governors on the dog.

1097
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:13,359
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to think that.

1098
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:16,799
Speaker 2: Question is if there is not a line of sight

1099
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 2: on that thirty six to one ten billion, right, that

1100
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:21,280
Speaker 2: doesn't exist, and that's a very hard.

1101
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: Thing when you're trying to get revenue generation. Once you

1102
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: start getting the large population corridors, if you could connect

1103
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:28,400
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley to Central Valley, which is the foundational argument,

1104
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: and you can start sharing. We're looking at train sets

1105
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 1: that have interoperability not just with bright Line, but a

1106
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 1: high desert corridors. You have two private sector partners and

1107
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 1: we're actually procuring train sets very very shortly, as I

1108
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 1: say we did the railhead. We're starting to lay track.

1109
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:46,799
Speaker 1: This thing is starting to get very very real. Some

1110
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:49,799
Speaker 1: of the projects you did see are projects that will

1111
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: have profound impacts economically in terms of the up zone,

1112
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:55,879
Speaker 1: particularly in the Fresno corridor, and Fresno is a very.

1113
00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 2: Important I think the big the big worry I heard

1114
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:01,680
Speaker 2: from transportation types is that the ridership in those quarters,

1115
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:04,279
Speaker 2: as fast growing as they may be, is not enough

1116
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:05,959
Speaker 2: to throw off money. It's not even enough to handle

1117
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:08,440
Speaker 2: that operating budget very likely, and it's definitely not going

1118
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 2: to throw off money that's going to complete one hundred

1119
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:12,760
Speaker 2: and ten billion dollar train, and that we're finishing something

1120
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 2: that in the end is going to be a monument

1121
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:17,279
Speaker 2: to not being able to Well there's the thing we

1122
00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 2: want it.

1123
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:18,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not going to be able to build a

1124
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 1: new airport. We're not, you know, I mean the end

1125
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 1: of the day, we've got these constraints that are well

1126
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:27,120
Speaker 1: established already, these pre existing constraints. There's not a high

1127
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:30,080
Speaker 1: speed railing system that's not enjoying some popularity and success.

1128
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 1: Most at least are wildly popular. It's an experience no

1129
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 1: one's had in the United States of America. At least,

1130
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 1: we're out there daring and we're trying to it can be.

1131
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:44,680
Speaker 2: Made that would make the next pieces just easier. I mean,

1132
00:55:44,719 --> 00:55:47,319
Speaker 2: I was always interested that, Like it wasn't exempted from

1133
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:49,800
Speaker 2: sequel in the first place. It's a pro environmental project,

1134
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 2: I know. You know, are there things like that?

1135
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I mean, I wish you wrote this

1136
00:55:54,239 --> 00:55:56,759
Speaker 1: damn book in two thousand and seven. Wow, Where the

1137
00:55:56,800 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: hell were you? It's a good question, seriously, by the way,

1138
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:02,880
Speaker 1: where were you? I was in Washington, man in Washington,

1139
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,640
Speaker 1: was in Washington. I mean, but you're right, no, look,

1140
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 1: and I don't see it's the art of the possible,

1141
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:10,280
Speaker 1: and I know that back to that's a practitioner framework.

1142
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:12,080
Speaker 1: I mean, I love to intellectualize all these things what

1143
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 1: could have, should have, would have, but there's certain foundational facts.

1144
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: And interestingly, you made the point in the book that

1145
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:20,399
Speaker 1: I have to over and over make to people, why

1146
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:23,880
Speaker 1: did we start in the Central Valley? It was a requirement,

1147
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:27,720
Speaker 1: federal requirement for federal dollars. Now it's not the worst idea,

1148
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:29,520
Speaker 1: I mean the Intercontinental.

1149
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 2: Just to say it was a requirement because the federal

1150
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:34,240
Speaker 2: program wasn't just for high speed rail. It's his start

1151
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:38,359
Speaker 2: where you had air pollution for marginalized communities, which is

1152
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 2: both Like, I just want to say this because it's

1153
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 2: part of why I'm saying this in the book is

1154
00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 2: that that all sounds great and there's you can come

1155
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:49,239
Speaker 2: up with reasons starting Central Valley, but it's the part

1156
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:52,240
Speaker 2: of the state that will generate the least political capital

1157
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 2: to keep going because it has the least danse ridership.

1158
00:56:56,600 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 1: But it's also part of the state that does have

1159
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you talk about it ignorance, poverty,

1160
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:03,040
Speaker 1: and disease. You talk about the issues of air quality

1161
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:06,919
Speaker 1: and life expectancy, you talk about the economic opportunity.

1162
00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:09,080
Speaker 2: But as air quality is the whole track.

1163
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 1: Well, ultimately fully electrified track. I mean that ultimately will This.

1164
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 2: Is just to me, it's an example. This one wasn't

1165
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:18,200
Speaker 2: California's fault. This was the Obama administration. But it's an

1166
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:21,480
Speaker 2: example of they should have given I want to say

1167
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:23,720
Speaker 2: what I think should have happened here. They should have

1168
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:27,480
Speaker 2: given you whatever three some billion dollars that's what that

1169
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:30,600
Speaker 2: grant was, and just said use it for high speed rail.

1170
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 1: Right.

1171
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:33,560
Speaker 2: It shouldn't have been a stacked series of ideas. Right,

1172
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:35,760
Speaker 2: it doesn't all need to be a triple axle. Right,

1173
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:38,120
Speaker 2: high speed rail is hard enough, as you know better

1174
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 2: than I do.

1175
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:42,040
Speaker 1: It's you know, representative democracy is a tough thing. Dictatorships

1176
00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 1: are a little easy.

1177
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:45,480
Speaker 2: Representative Tom knew that.

1178
00:57:45,520 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of folks in the Central Valley,

1179
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:49,160
Speaker 1: a lot of the elected officials, a lot of the

1180
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 1: blue dog Democrats a lot.

1181
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:54,080
Speaker 2: But the Obama administration when they created those programs, right, yeah,

1182
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:55,800
Speaker 2: that's a lot happening. I really, this isn't.

1183
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:59,960
Speaker 1: There were a lot of representatives, Democrats, representers that still

1184
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:04,480
Speaker 1: sipulated their support for that bill in those dollars that

1185
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: it go to the center.

1186
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:06,600
Speaker 2: There is a lot to be politics in that. I

1187
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 2: don't want to take that away, but I do want

1188
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:10,360
Speaker 2: to say because this comes up a lot when I'm

1189
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 2: talking about this book. It's like, oh, do you hate democracy?

1190
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 2: People have no fucking idea what is happening in these

1191
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:21,360
Speaker 2: regulatory processes, Like I cover this professionally, and when I

1192
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:23,680
Speaker 2: dig into what is happening after these bills pass, I'm like,

1193
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 2: oh my god, really that is not democracy. That is,

1194
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 2: we have created things that were supposed to a lot

1195
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 2: of participation and they are often very captured. Maybe they're

1196
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 2: captured by interests. You like, that's fine, but that is

1197
00:58:35,440 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 2: not the thing that you know, the massive Californians have

1198
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:40,960
Speaker 2: voted for Prop one A knew they were getting. And

1199
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:42,960
Speaker 2: even those of us covering the stimulus bill, we're not

1200
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:47,680
Speaker 2: looking at the precise requirements in the notice of funding

1201
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 2: opportunity in the grant program. So there is this thing,

1202
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 2: I think where a lot of this highly technocratic governance,

1203
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:58,680
Speaker 2: which is very much a negotiation between different interests, is

1204
00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 2: in this like King's Cup Way being justified as democracy.

1205
00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 2: That's not what democracy looks like. I'll use that chant here, right,

1206
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:07,760
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not SHP. Nobody knows about you.

1207
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:10,960
Speaker 1: Look, I mean you're you're very adjacent to the arguments

1208
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:14,120
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk is making with Doge, this clay layer

1209
00:59:14,120 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 1: of bureaucracy. This is not representative. Who the hell are

1210
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:19,560
Speaker 1: these people to make these rules? Who are these people

1211
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:22,840
Speaker 1: making these decisions? And the opacity of these decisions? And

1212
00:59:22,840 --> 00:59:25,320
Speaker 1: I've made in sunshine and daylight and a lot of

1213
00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 1: these three levels.

1214
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:29,960
Speaker 2: Supposed to Nicholas Bagley, the more liberal law professor, making

1215
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 2: these rules. But I think I'll take the head.

1216
00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: No, it's well, it's not even a hit. But I mean,

1217
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:37,080
Speaker 1: I think it goes to the sentiment, it goes to

1218
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 1: I think it goes to the thematics of your book.

1219
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 1: It goes to what you're trying to stress test and

1220
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:43,840
Speaker 1: what you're trying to stress upon us as Democrats, that

1221
00:59:43,880 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: we need to be more accountable. Here's anything. But let

1222
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: me make this point. I say this all the time,

1223
00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 1: my legislative friends. Right when I sign a bill, I said,

1224
00:59:51,240 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 1: this happens so obviously not indictment of any individual legislature.

1225
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:57,160
Speaker 1: It's in sort of institutionalized. They think the process is done,

1226
00:59:57,320 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 1: process just begun.

1227
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 2: Just beginning program again not problem.

1228
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:04,120
Speaker 1: Solving, and then that implementation application goes through exactly what

1229
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:07,680
Speaker 1: you're saying. What's an You mentioned no foes in in

1230
01:00:07,680 --> 01:00:10,280
Speaker 1: in the book, we have no fuzz, which I notice

1231
01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:14,320
Speaker 1: a funny availability, not opportunity. And then you stack all

1232
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 1: those things up with all these rules and requirements along

1233
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:20,320
Speaker 1: the lines you suggest that was never part of anyone's understanding.

1234
01:00:20,320 --> 01:00:22,280
Speaker 1: Your vision is what you just saw this, And I

1235
01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 1: think there's absolutegitimacy.

1236
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:25,800
Speaker 2: I have this joke that everybody knows a schoolhouse rock

1237
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:28,600
Speaker 2: song of like how a bill becomes a law, but

1238
01:00:28,640 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 2: what they don't know is how a law becomes or

1239
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:33,800
Speaker 2: does not become like a reality, right, like the things

1240
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:35,800
Speaker 2: that happened after actually much more complicated. But I want

1241
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 2: to say one thing about Elon Muskandoje And at this

1242
01:00:38,120 --> 01:00:40,560
Speaker 2: point I was just I just referenced Nick Bagley, who

1243
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:43,200
Speaker 2: is a great administ of law professor of Michigan. He

1244
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 2: was Gretchen Whitmer's your your gubernatorial colleagues, chief counsel. He

1245
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 2: wrote this piece it's very influential these days and very

1246
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:52,520
Speaker 2: influential for me, called the procedural fetish, And one of

1247
01:00:52,560 --> 01:00:54,200
Speaker 2: the things he says in that that I think is

1248
01:00:54,240 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 2: really wise is that the Democotic Party is very legalistic.

1249
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 2: It's got a lot of lawyers in it. Between Tim

1250
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 2: Walls was the first person on a Democratic ticket since

1251
01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:09,440
Speaker 2: Mondell to not go to law school. We're very legalistic

1252
01:01:10,160 --> 01:01:14,400
Speaker 2: and lawyers and constitutional lawyers and administrative procedure lawyers. They

1253
01:01:14,480 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 2: grapple a lot with a very hard question, which is

1254
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:19,560
Speaker 2: what makes government action legitimate? And the answer they often

1255
01:01:19,560 --> 01:01:22,160
Speaker 2: come to his procedure right is following the procedures set

1256
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:23,760
Speaker 2: out in the laws and the rules and the court orders,

1257
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:26,200
Speaker 2: et cetera. It's not that there's nothing to that. But

1258
01:01:26,240 --> 01:01:28,200
Speaker 2: the point Bagley makes, which I think is the right

1259
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:30,040
Speaker 2: counter or the way to think about the point Elon

1260
01:01:30,120 --> 01:01:33,240
Speaker 2: Musk is making, is it, to most people, what makes

1261
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 2: government legitimate in a democracy is it they are getting

1262
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 2: what they think they voted for. When they vote for

1263
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:40,200
Speaker 2: you and you say you're going to do X, Y

1264
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:42,320
Speaker 2: and Z, they got X, Y and Z. And if

1265
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:44,600
Speaker 2: they don't feel like they got that, they vote you

1266
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:47,600
Speaker 2: out right. They see you as illegitimate failure. And the

1267
01:01:47,720 --> 01:01:51,080
Speaker 2: problem with Musk and Doge, in addition to its lawless nature,

1268
01:01:51,880 --> 01:01:55,880
Speaker 2: is that its ends are terrible, and the people did

1269
01:01:55,880 --> 01:01:59,120
Speaker 2: not vote for, you know, not to be able to

1270
01:01:59,200 --> 01:02:02,280
Speaker 2: reach anybody at Social Security Administration or the IRS. Ever

1271
01:02:02,320 --> 01:02:04,680
Speaker 2: again on the phone, right, that wasn't part of the pitch,

1272
01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:09,920
Speaker 2: But it's I think really important that liberals have a

1273
01:02:09,960 --> 01:02:12,080
Speaker 2: little bit more of the sense not the procedure is meaningless,

1274
01:02:12,080 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 2: because it isn't you need procedure. But what really connects

1275
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:20,000
Speaker 2: government to people is outcomes, the lived experience of government

1276
01:02:20,120 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 2: acting in their life. And if you are letting endless

1277
01:02:23,960 --> 01:02:26,400
Speaker 2: levels of not just process but process, you have created.

1278
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:28,600
Speaker 2: I mean when we're talking about no foes and no fas,

1279
01:02:28,640 --> 01:02:31,200
Speaker 2: and I mean that is the work of men and women.

1280
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 2: You know, we are writing that shit down on the computer.

1281
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when we lost everyone, we opened up with sequences.

1282
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 2: And this is this is going to be a very high,

1283
01:02:39,160 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 2: high audience podcast. But when you do that, I think

1284
01:02:43,160 --> 01:02:46,240
Speaker 2: that that actually is a cultural change. The thing I

1285
01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:49,520
Speaker 2: respect about Elon Musk there's a lot these days I

1286
01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:52,440
Speaker 2: don't like about the guy, but there is a relentlessness

1287
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:55,200
Speaker 2: to the way he pursues his objectives, a real sense

1288
01:02:55,240 --> 01:02:58,080
Speaker 2: it in between here and the end he is seeking

1289
01:02:58,480 --> 01:03:00,920
Speaker 2: might be a lot of pain a lot of disappointment,

1290
01:03:00,960 --> 01:03:03,120
Speaker 2: might be a lot of angry people. But if this

1291
01:03:03,280 --> 01:03:06,120
Speaker 2: is worth it, which on Tesla and SpaceX it was,

1292
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:08,280
Speaker 2: and on destroying the federal government, in my view it isn't,

1293
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:12,240
Speaker 2: then this is worth it, And that I think has

1294
01:03:12,280 --> 01:03:14,520
Speaker 2: not been the culture of liberal governance. The culture of

1295
01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:18,120
Speaker 2: liberal governance has actually been to try to generate political

1296
01:03:18,160 --> 01:03:21,320
Speaker 2: support by giving things to interest groups in the middle

1297
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:24,160
Speaker 2: of the process. Right, you pass the bill, then there's

1298
01:03:24,160 --> 01:03:26,680
Speaker 2: a regulatory thing. Nobody's really paying attention to that, and

1299
01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:28,800
Speaker 2: you do a bunch of payoffs there, and then the

1300
01:03:28,840 --> 01:03:31,000
Speaker 2: thing doesn't work as well, or it's slower, or it's

1301
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:33,440
Speaker 2: more expensive, and then people think you don't do a

1302
01:03:33,480 --> 01:03:38,840
Speaker 2: great job, and like that's actually undermining the legitimacy of government.

1303
01:03:38,920 --> 01:03:46,919
Speaker 1: Could agree more. By the way, sort of going back

1304
01:03:46,960 --> 01:03:50,560
Speaker 1: to that book, Citizen literally talks about this in the

1305
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 1: context of it's not inputs, it's outcomes. This pyramids inverting

1306
01:03:54,040 --> 01:03:56,880
Speaker 1: more choice, more voice. I talk about government being a

1307
01:03:56,960 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 1: vending machine where you put in your taxes, you get police, fire, healthcare, education.

1308
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:03,840
Speaker 1: If you don't like what you get, you kick the machine,

1309
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:07,160
Speaker 1: you shake the machine. And shifting that paradigm and not

1310
01:04:07,200 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 1: just government efficiency, but how government works. Moving away from

1311
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:14,640
Speaker 1: you vote, I decide more of a participatory framework in

1312
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:18,400
Speaker 1: between elections. We're finally starting to see the fruits of

1313
01:04:18,440 --> 01:04:20,600
Speaker 1: that vision, and near the end of my term in

1314
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 1: the context of these new models we've created, Engaged California,

1315
01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:27,360
Speaker 1: our new procurement platforms, the work that Jen Polka helps

1316
01:04:27,400 --> 01:04:29,560
Speaker 1: seed in the reforms we're doing as it relates to

1317
01:04:29,560 --> 01:04:35,360
Speaker 1: our large scale IT reforms. But look, this is this

1318
01:04:35,480 --> 01:04:39,240
Speaker 1: notion of being accountable. Society becomes how we behave we

1319
01:04:39,280 --> 01:04:41,960
Speaker 1: are behaviors. All this, to your point, happened on our watch.

1320
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:45,760
Speaker 1: We own it. Democrats, we own it. Can't point fingers.

1321
01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:46,880
Speaker 1: You got to look in the mirror. You got to

1322
01:04:46,880 --> 01:04:51,120
Speaker 1: take responsibility. I think foundationally that's at center of this book,

1323
01:04:51,120 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 1: and I think it's very helpful and it's humbling as well,

1324
01:04:54,560 --> 01:04:57,680
Speaker 1: but it's critically important this time not only that we

1325
01:04:57,720 --> 01:05:02,120
Speaker 1: focus on situational politics, but how we're governing and how

1326
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:05,360
Speaker 1: we're delivering real results, because I mean, if I have

1327
01:05:05,400 --> 01:05:07,960
Speaker 1: another press conference about how much money we're spending almost this,

1328
01:05:08,080 --> 01:05:10,280
Speaker 1: they're gonna take my head off. They want to see

1329
01:05:10,400 --> 01:05:13,480
Speaker 1: encampments off the damn street that's what they're measuring by.

1330
01:05:13,600 --> 01:05:16,240
Speaker 1: They want more housing so that the cost of that

1331
01:05:16,280 --> 01:05:19,760
Speaker 1: housing goes down because there's more supply. They don't give

1332
01:05:19,760 --> 01:05:21,520
Speaker 1: a damn about the process. They don't know what a

1333
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:24,040
Speaker 1: nofa is or a no foe. They don't care about

1334
01:05:24,080 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. You're one hundred percent right, it

1335
01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:29,560
Speaker 1: does matter. I think there's a balance that we have

1336
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:32,200
Speaker 1: to find. We're trying to find that balance. We're iterating.

1337
01:05:32,560 --> 01:05:36,240
Speaker 1: But this notion of relentlessness is very resonant. What you

1338
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:39,400
Speaker 1: just said. To be seen doing what you said about

1339
01:05:39,440 --> 01:05:42,520
Speaker 1: Trump a minute ago, we've got to be seen not

1340
01:05:42,680 --> 01:05:47,040
Speaker 1: defending the status quo, defending the high speed rail. This

1341
01:05:47,120 --> 01:05:48,000
Speaker 1: went really well for.

1342
01:05:48,040 --> 01:05:51,240
Speaker 2: Me, but defends into our breef.

1343
01:05:53,360 --> 01:05:58,680
Speaker 1: Sort of dynamic expectations that taxpayers rightfully are placed on us.

1344
01:05:58,680 --> 01:06:01,240
Speaker 1: But let me just end with that, because you and

1345
01:06:01,640 --> 01:06:06,160
Speaker 1: this book making that case from an abundance frame, back

1346
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:10,800
Speaker 1: to this nomenclature around abundance. But you talk about DARPA,

1347
01:06:10,960 --> 01:06:15,520
Speaker 1: you talk about CRISPER, you talk about ARPA, NEET, going

1348
01:06:15,520 --> 01:06:18,160
Speaker 1: back in nineteen sixty nine, the origins of the Internet,

1349
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 1: you talk about the nih the NSF, you talk about

1350
01:06:22,360 --> 01:06:24,880
Speaker 1: all of these things. That few people that are listening

1351
01:06:25,040 --> 01:06:28,360
Speaker 1: even know, but that are important, and it relates to innovation.

1352
01:06:28,480 --> 01:06:31,800
Speaker 1: It's not an act that occurs, it's a process contradicting

1353
01:06:31,840 --> 01:06:34,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of what we just said that unfolds

1354
01:06:34,040 --> 01:06:34,520
Speaker 1: over time.

1355
01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:36,480
Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit, Well, everything's a process, so

1356
01:06:36,520 --> 01:06:38,760
Speaker 2: we don't want to say all processes are bad, just

1357
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:41,960
Speaker 2: like all regulations are not good or bad. Yeah, this

1358
01:06:42,040 --> 01:06:43,919
Speaker 2: is the other piece of the book that we haven't

1359
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:47,200
Speaker 2: talked that much about. But abundance is not just like

1360
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:49,680
Speaker 2: me banging my fist on the table about how high

1361
01:06:49,680 --> 01:06:54,439
Speaker 2: speed relting get finished. It's also motivated in part by

1362
01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:58,880
Speaker 2: a belief that Democrats have developed a dysfunctional relationship with

1363
01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:00,920
Speaker 2: technology and in way of the future. Sure, and I

1364
01:07:00,960 --> 01:07:03,080
Speaker 2: sort of date this back in my own reading of

1365
01:07:03,120 --> 01:07:06,920
Speaker 2: it to around twenty sixteen, when I think the harms

1366
01:07:06,920 --> 01:07:10,120
Speaker 2: of social media became really salient to people. I think

1367
01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:12,280
Speaker 2: it got over blamed for the twenty sixteen election. I've

1368
01:07:12,280 --> 01:07:15,240
Speaker 2: never been a believer that misinformation was like the driver there.

1369
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:18,280
Speaker 2: But it is rotting our brains and it's not making

1370
01:07:18,320 --> 01:07:20,600
Speaker 2: us better people, and it's fucking up our kids. Right,

1371
01:07:20,800 --> 01:07:23,520
Speaker 2: And it's represented by like a small crew of tech

1372
01:07:23,560 --> 01:07:25,680
Speaker 2: billionaires who you know, in the years since, have turned

1373
01:07:25,720 --> 01:07:29,920
Speaker 2: you know, more and more both right and weird, and

1374
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:33,960
Speaker 2: I think the left got to become very skeptical of it.

1375
01:07:34,520 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 2: And one of the things that we're trying to say

1376
01:07:36,520 --> 01:07:39,080
Speaker 2: is that a huge amount of social progress, a huge

1377
01:07:39,080 --> 01:07:40,959
Speaker 2: amount of what makes it possible of the life better

1378
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:43,280
Speaker 2: than the one we live now, is not just new

1379
01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:46,080
Speaker 2: social insurance programs, though those are very important and I

1380
01:07:46,080 --> 01:07:50,160
Speaker 2: would like to see some of them, or redistribution. It's technology,

1381
01:07:50,800 --> 01:07:54,680
Speaker 2: and it is also being thoughtful about the government's ability

1382
01:07:55,080 --> 01:07:59,760
Speaker 2: to organize resources and rules and manpower to pull technology

1383
01:07:59,760 --> 01:08:02,720
Speaker 2: from the future into the present. Right, the canonical example

1384
01:08:02,720 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 2: here is a Manhattan Project, But you can think of

1385
01:08:06,320 --> 01:08:08,200
Speaker 2: the Internet, which, as we talked about, you know, comes

1386
01:08:08,200 --> 01:08:10,800
Speaker 2: from the arpinnet. You can think about Operation warp Speed,

1387
01:08:10,840 --> 01:08:13,480
Speaker 2: like the one truly great success of Aalen Trump's first term,

1388
01:08:13,480 --> 01:08:16,720
Speaker 2: which is now disowned very much by him and and

1389
01:08:17,000 --> 01:08:20,200
Speaker 2: to some degree by the Democrats to some credit to

1390
01:08:20,400 --> 01:08:23,920
Speaker 2: a little bit. And so there is a There are

1391
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:26,760
Speaker 2: a lot of problems like the only reason we have

1392
01:08:26,920 --> 01:08:31,080
Speaker 2: any shot on preventing a world of three or four

1393
01:08:31,080 --> 01:08:35,240
Speaker 2: degrees of warming Celsius is because we have created miracles

1394
01:08:35,439 --> 01:08:43,200
Speaker 2: through government policy in solar winds.

1395
01:08:41,360 --> 01:08:46,800
Speaker 1: Would not exist for the regulatory of.

1396
01:08:45,680 --> 01:08:48,800
Speaker 2: One of the great one of the great shames of

1397
01:08:48,840 --> 01:08:51,400
Speaker 2: what Elon Musk has become is that guy is a

1398
01:08:51,439 --> 01:08:55,120
Speaker 2: walking advertisement for the power of public private partnership. He

1399
01:08:55,240 --> 01:08:57,600
Speaker 2: is just like every major company he has done, is

1400
01:08:57,600 --> 01:09:01,559
Speaker 2: built on government subsidies, government loan guarantees.

1401
01:09:02,200 --> 01:09:04,520
Speaker 1: Government demand. In the original.

1402
01:09:05,680 --> 01:09:08,000
Speaker 2: Now guys just pulling the ladder up after him. It

1403
01:09:08,080 --> 01:09:12,439
Speaker 2: drives me fucking crazy, but I guess.

1404
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:16,080
Speaker 1: But also it's a principle that you lay out as

1405
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:19,160
Speaker 1: it relates to Dartha and which gave us GPS, gave

1406
01:09:19,240 --> 01:09:22,519
Speaker 1: us the self driving car he's now promoting that gave

1407
01:09:22,600 --> 01:09:23,719
Speaker 1: us so much of this innovation.

1408
01:09:23,800 --> 01:09:26,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, and certainly that seated it. See and you know,

1409
01:09:26,479 --> 01:09:29,519
Speaker 2: look like I'm a big believer in universal healthcare. A

1410
01:09:29,560 --> 01:09:31,439
Speaker 2: lot of my career has been, you know, about trying

1411
01:09:31,479 --> 01:09:34,520
Speaker 2: to expand health insurance. But where health insurance.

1412
01:09:34,120 --> 01:09:37,320
Speaker 1: In the only state that does that, regardless of ability

1413
01:09:37,320 --> 01:09:39,559
Speaker 1: to pay in their resisting conditions and immigration.

1414
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:43,479
Speaker 2: But there's a reality to this that for the people

1415
01:09:43,520 --> 01:09:46,439
Speaker 2: who have health insurance, which is most people, what really

1416
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:48,840
Speaker 2: matters is when you get sick. Is there a cure?

1417
01:09:49,360 --> 01:09:51,720
Speaker 2: My wife is kept alive by shots of Vinceland. She

1418
01:09:51,800 --> 01:09:56,040
Speaker 2: just is. Right, at another age she wouldn't be. There

1419
01:09:56,200 --> 01:09:58,840
Speaker 2: is so much that we do not yet know how

1420
01:09:58,880 --> 01:10:01,320
Speaker 2: to cure, right, there is so much. I mean, what

1421
01:10:01,400 --> 01:10:04,160
Speaker 2: Medicare or Medicaid can offer, or private health insurance because

1422
01:10:04,160 --> 01:10:07,280
Speaker 2: they don't yet cover it for most people with GLP

1423
01:10:07,400 --> 01:10:09,800
Speaker 2: ones is just more valuable than what it could offer

1424
01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 2: before GLP ones. These are going to be transformational medications

1425
01:10:13,320 --> 01:10:17,280
Speaker 2: for people they already are. And so getting really serious

1426
01:10:17,640 --> 01:10:21,680
Speaker 2: about what we want the government to do technologically and

1427
01:10:21,760 --> 01:10:25,559
Speaker 2: having a vision of the future that is an abundant one, right,

1428
01:10:26,040 --> 01:10:28,200
Speaker 2: a vision of the future that is not just about

1429
01:10:28,280 --> 01:10:31,000
Speaker 2: like how cheap consumer goods are. That's fine, but it's

1430
01:10:31,040 --> 01:10:33,519
Speaker 2: about the things we need to build or better a

1431
01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:39,120
Speaker 2: life right, cheap energy, cheap healthcare right, abundant housing, education. Right.

1432
01:10:39,120 --> 01:10:40,600
Speaker 2: There's a lot of things we only touch on in

1433
01:10:40,640 --> 01:10:43,760
Speaker 2: the book that are really important here. I think that

1434
01:10:44,240 --> 01:10:46,759
Speaker 2: one of the shames of politics in the last couple

1435
01:10:46,760 --> 01:10:49,200
Speaker 2: of years is it got to be a really bitter

1436
01:10:49,360 --> 01:10:52,960
Speaker 2: argument over our past, right, with the r right.

1437
01:10:52,880 --> 01:10:55,840
Speaker 1: Notion of American reverse pre nineteen.

1438
01:10:55,520 --> 01:10:59,280
Speaker 2: Sex the right that is gripped by a deep nostalgia

1439
01:10:59,400 --> 01:11:02,200
Speaker 2: for an America. I think that never really was, and

1440
01:11:02,280 --> 01:11:06,280
Speaker 2: the left was really focus, really focused on the injustices

1441
01:11:06,360 --> 01:11:08,400
Speaker 2: of our history, which I think are very real. So

1442
01:11:08,439 --> 01:11:11,800
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to undermine that as a thing worth confronting,

1443
01:11:12,439 --> 01:11:14,880
Speaker 2: but I think visions of the future, for different reasons

1444
01:11:14,880 --> 01:11:18,160
Speaker 2: on both sides, became really degraded. Cole and one thing

1445
01:11:18,200 --> 01:11:20,400
Speaker 2: that did change with Trump between his first term and

1446
01:11:20,439 --> 01:11:24,320
Speaker 2: the second is Elon Musk Mark Andriesen. In a way RK. Junior,

1447
01:11:24,360 --> 01:11:27,600
Speaker 2: they changed his meaning. Trump was the defender of the

1448
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:30,639
Speaker 2: past America in twenty sixteen, Make America Great Again. All

1449
01:11:30,680 --> 01:11:33,960
Speaker 2: these futurist influencers and you know, rocket makers and so on.

1450
01:11:34,320 --> 01:11:36,600
Speaker 2: They sort of made him into something that represented a

1451
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:39,160
Speaker 2: kind of future. I think it's quite dark one, but

1452
01:11:39,240 --> 01:11:41,960
Speaker 2: it is, but there is around him. JD. Vans right,

1453
01:11:42,080 --> 01:11:45,720
Speaker 2: It changed what he meant and I think to compete

1454
01:11:45,720 --> 01:11:48,320
Speaker 2: with that, and given that they're going to destroy the present,

1455
01:11:49,120 --> 01:11:50,240
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to end up being a

1456
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 2: very attractive vision to people. But to compete with that,

1457
01:11:52,400 --> 01:11:54,799
Speaker 2: I think Democrats need to figure out how to represent

1458
01:11:54,800 --> 01:11:57,840
Speaker 2: a future again. I think Obama represented the future. I

1459
01:11:57,880 --> 01:12:01,840
Speaker 2: think Bill Clinton represented the future. And like both that

1460
01:12:02,000 --> 01:12:04,519
Speaker 2: sort of ability to grab reform, which is part of

1461
01:12:04,560 --> 01:12:07,479
Speaker 2: what abundance is about, reform of government, and that ability

1462
01:12:07,560 --> 01:12:10,080
Speaker 2: to grab the high ground of the future, which is

1463
01:12:10,120 --> 01:12:12,000
Speaker 2: the other part of what it's about. This ability to

1464
01:12:12,080 --> 01:12:16,040
Speaker 2: integrate a theory of technology and an optimism about it,

1465
01:12:16,080 --> 01:12:19,320
Speaker 2: and the ability to sort of rapid in policy. Those

1466
01:12:19,320 --> 01:12:22,080
Speaker 2: things are really important. We haven't talked about AI. There's

1467
01:12:22,080 --> 01:12:24,040
Speaker 2: a lot coming here that's going to be very important,

1468
01:12:24,560 --> 01:12:27,240
Speaker 2: and the party that medical frame and the party and

1469
01:12:27,240 --> 01:12:29,160
Speaker 2: the thinkers in it are going to have to be

1470
01:12:29,240 --> 01:12:33,000
Speaker 2: alert to this side of it too, because it is

1471
01:12:33,040 --> 01:12:35,280
Speaker 2: a mistake to think of politics as a separate sphere

1472
01:12:35,280 --> 01:12:38,200
Speaker 2: from technology. You know, if we could do more modular housing,

1473
01:12:38,240 --> 01:12:40,360
Speaker 2: it would change what is possible in housing policy.

1474
01:12:40,439 --> 01:12:40,639
Speaker 1: Right.

1475
01:12:40,840 --> 01:12:44,160
Speaker 2: These things are bi directional, they're intertwined, and like, I

1476
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:46,559
Speaker 2: would like to see a liberalism that isn't just angry

1477
01:12:46,920 --> 01:12:48,439
Speaker 2: about a bunch of things that government is failed to do,

1478
01:12:48,520 --> 01:12:50,840
Speaker 2: as I am, but it is also optimistic about what

1479
01:12:50,960 --> 01:12:53,360
Speaker 2: is possible. And that's where that vision between red and

1480
01:12:53,360 --> 01:12:55,880
Speaker 2: blue states really diverges. I mean Trump and them, they're

1481
01:12:55,880 --> 01:12:58,040
Speaker 2: trying to destroy winded solar. They don't want this vision.

1482
01:12:58,080 --> 01:13:00,439
Speaker 2: They don't want more trade, they don't want more people.

1483
01:13:00,520 --> 01:13:03,400
Speaker 2: Right there, it's all scarcity, and that leads a pretty

1484
01:13:03,439 --> 01:13:05,880
Speaker 2: big opening for the Democratic Party to capture both reform

1485
01:13:05,920 --> 01:13:06,960
Speaker 2: and abundance from them.

1486
01:13:07,160 --> 01:13:09,240
Speaker 1: I love that and it's a great way to end

1487
01:13:09,240 --> 01:13:11,360
Speaker 1: because it's a framework of optimism, of course, you know,

1488
01:13:11,479 --> 01:13:13,840
Speaker 1: and I appreciate just I'm thinking about Clinton, don't stop

1489
01:13:13,880 --> 01:13:16,960
Speaker 1: thinking about tomorrow. I mean, obviously there was language around that,

1490
01:13:17,200 --> 01:13:20,560
Speaker 1: and you know, talking about your tomorrow's not his. Yesterday's

1491
01:13:21,040 --> 01:13:23,280
Speaker 1: obviously the journey that we were on in the nineteen

1492
01:13:23,320 --> 01:13:26,840
Speaker 1: sixties with the vision that was JFK. But I will

1493
01:13:26,840 --> 01:13:28,679
Speaker 1: say about our state, and it's a point of pride

1494
01:13:28,680 --> 01:13:30,920
Speaker 1: and in principle for me as governors said, or as

1495
01:13:30,920 --> 01:13:33,839
Speaker 1: the future ex governor, as a fifth generation California future

1496
01:13:33,880 --> 01:13:36,839
Speaker 1: happens here first. And I talked about this being America's

1497
01:13:36,880 --> 01:13:40,160
Speaker 1: coming attraction. But that's that's the game that separates, I

1498
01:13:40,160 --> 01:13:43,519
Speaker 1: think our game from the game played everywhere else. It's

1499
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Speaker 1: the reason we went from the seventh largest economy to

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Speaker 1: the sixth largest economy in the world, and we dominate

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01:13:48,479 --> 01:13:51,800
Speaker 1: in so many spears even today. But you're absolutely right.

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01:13:51,840 --> 01:13:53,920
Speaker 1: We now have to dominate on that reform agenda and

1503
01:13:53,920 --> 01:13:56,200
Speaker 1: we have to deal with the original sin and that's

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01:13:56,240 --> 01:14:00,160
Speaker 1: housing and again being accountable to these larger visions as

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01:14:00,160 --> 01:14:02,680
Speaker 1: well and deliver and level set with folks. And so

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01:14:03,080 --> 01:14:07,439
Speaker 1: it's in that spirit of an abundant mindset that Ezra,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you took the time to be here. I'm

1508
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Speaker 1: really moreover pleased you took time to write this book,

1509
01:14:13,439 --> 01:14:16,040
Speaker 1: which is an essential reading for everybody listening. Thanks for

1510
01:14:16,080 --> 01:14:17,760
Speaker 1: being with us, Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 2: Thank you